My Name is Paul H Cosentino. I started this Blog in 2011 because of what I believe to be wrongdoings in town government. This Blog is to keep the citizens of Templeton informed. It is also for the citizens of Templeton to post their comments and concerns.

Paul working for you.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Snowden: What The Wikileaks Revelations Show Is "Reckless Beyond Words"

Snowden: What The Wikileaks Revelations Show Is "Reckless Beyond Words"

While it has been superficially covered by
much of the press - and one can make the argument that what Julian
Assange has revealed is more relevant to the US population, than
constant and so far unconfirmed speculation that Trump is a puppet of
Putin - the fallout from the Wikileaks' "Vault 7" release this morning
of thousands of documents demonstrating the extent to which the CIA uses
backdoors to hack smartphones, computer operating systems, messenger
applications and internet-connected televisions, will be profound.

As evidence of this, the WSJ cites an intelligence source who said that "the revelations were far more significant than the leaks of Edward Snowden."

Mr. Snowden’s leaks revealed names of programs,
companies that assist the NSA in surveillance and in some cases the
targets of American spying. But the recent leak purports to contain
highly technical details about how surveillance is carried out. That
would make them far more revealing and useful to an adversary, this
person said. In one sense, Mr. Snowden provided a briefing book on U.S. surveillance, but the CIA leaks could provide the blueprints.

Speaking of Snowden, the former NSA
contractor-turned-whistleblower, who now appears to have a "parallel
whisteblower" deep inside the "Deep State", i.e., the source of the
Wikileaks data - also had some thoughts on today's CIA dump.

In a series of tweets, Snowden notes that "what @Wikileaks
has here is genuinely a big deal", and makes the following key
observations "If you're writing about the CIA/@Wikileaks story, here's
the big deal: first public evidence USG secretly paying to keep US software unsafe"
and adds that "the CIA reports show the USG developing vulnerabilities
in US products, then intentionally keeping the holes open. Reckless beyond words."

He then asks rhetorically "Why is this dangerous?" and explains "Because until closed, any hacker can use the security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world."

His conclusion, one which many of the so-called conspiratorial bent would say was well-known long ago: "Evidence
mounts showing CIA & FBI knew about catastrophic weaknesses in the
most-used smartphones in America, but kept them open -- to spy."